


Flights of Angels

by Emby_M



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Established Lovers Horatio and Hamlet, M/M, Needy Hamlet, Original Text, Suicidal/Depressive Hamlet, ending scene, inspired by that one post on tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 14:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9611756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emby_M/pseuds/Emby_M
Summary: An interpretation of the final scene in Hamlet, where Horatio tries to kiss away the remaining poison from Hamlet's lips.





	

The prince totters, his arms limp by his side and his steps faltering as he makes his way down from the dias, crossing before Laertes who even now is asking his forgiveness.

"Heaven make thee free of it." He says, his steps uneven and wearisome, his back curling under the exertion of standing. He comes to me, his dark, ringed eyes alive with fire but slowly, slowly dimming. He throws a cursory glance back to Laertes, sighing sharply, "I follow thee."

He collapses into me, his face pressed to my chest, grabbing at my sleeves and breathing heavily now. His embrace is familiar and tender. It is like those nights when he would awake, his brow in a cold sweat, and press his skin to mine and demand I calm him and coddle him and kiss him.

"I am dead, Horatio," he slurs. His voice is soft now. I hold him up but he pulls on my sleeves more, and I sink with him to the floor as he rearranges himself over me. From over my shoulder, he sights his mother and murmurs, "Wretched queen, adieu."

He speaks softly and tenderly now, his long-awaited death coming to him. His ultimate goal realized, his step-father slain, he arranges himself in my arms comfortably and tenderly. He seeks comfort.

I cannot hold him. I feel my eyes welling with tears, the horror at the inevitable coming to the apex it always had to but that I attempted to ignore. My hands tremble against his back, the tears only obscured by his thin and bony shoulder.

"You that look pale and tremble at this chance," he mumbles, as though he were talking to a court, "that are but mutes or audience to this act..."

He speaks to no one. The courtiers all have left, leaving the grand hall open and eerie in its silence. I hold him and kiss his jaw and temple, as though pleas could be recieved if only my kisses were desperate enough. He languishes in my touch, content, somehow.

I feel sick.

"Had I but time," he laughs, slightly, talking towards where his mother lies, where he must apparently see a court before him, "as this fell seargent, Death, is strict in his arrest, oh, I could tell you..."

He pulls from me, his breathing labored, his hand tracing the rim of the goblet lazily, which had not entirely tipped, but rather fallen upon a stair and maintained its contents.

"But let it be," he murmurs.

He pulls his thin, boned hand from the cup and winds it, and his gaze, to my face. He cups my cheek, cocking his head like a naive child, lips pursed and eyes taking in each detail of the sorrow which no doubt shows upon my face.

"Horatio, I am dead," he says, his voice lacking the bitterness it usually maintained, lacking the wistfulness. He speaks plain, so plain I can do nothing but sob, bringing him close and crying into his shoulder. He shushes me softly, cooing platitudes and warmth.

"Thou livest," he coos, kissing my cheeks as the grow wet with great tears, "thou livest." His hands are frail and tender on my face, attempting to banish the rolling drops which fall. "report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied."

His eyes are too bright, too wicked, despite his tenderness. I am caught. Gasping and sobbing, I plead with him silently, my mouth not working. His eyes disarm me, force my compliance; the cup which rests on the stair distracts me from him.

It is an idea. It is not a smart one. But I am not being rational when I take it, holding him at an arm's length to keep him from stopping me, and poise it at my lips.

He snaps from the content, calm demeanor at this. His eyes at once turn from liquid to steel. He does not fight my arm.

"Never believe it. I am more-" I stutter over my words, constricting fear of both my beloved's death and my own clogging my windpipe, "I am more ancient Roman than a Dane. Here - Here's yet some liquor left."

His face contorts into anger, his feline agility getting the better of me and wresting the cup from my grip. "As thou art a man, give me the cup!"

Before he can bring it to his lips, I get my hand upon it, trying to... trying to...

"Let go!" he yells, hitting me quite vigorously with his boot despite his weakening strength, new pain in his eyes, "By heaven, I'll have it."

He drinks, swallowing the rest of the wine and throwing the cup from us so that it and the pearl clatter against the empty tile floor.

I lunge at him, trying to kiss the poison away, trying, desperately, to somehow save him, or at least to not suffer alone on this earth any further.

He hits me.

With the palm of his hand, he hits me hard enough that it leaves my skin pulsing and the momentum still in my skin, causing me to stumble. Our embrace is broken, and I feel the mark of the band which I had given him only days before.

He looks at his hand and at my face in slow horror. His expression slowly crumples.

Now he is the one who looks like he's about to cry. His mouth is pulled into a bow-shape, imploring, "Oh god, Horatio, what a wounded name."

He barely touches my hand where it rests, his other hand still held aloft for the fear of his action. His finger tips are blue and cold. It is possibly the first time his voice has spoken compassion.

"Things standing thus unknown, shall I leave behind me." His gaze finds mine, and begs, silently. Tears now well in his eyes.

I lunge again, sobbing, but he covers his lips with his hand. It is out of no self-destructive intent, only the intent to kiss away his sorrow, but he still refuses to be the cause of my death, squeezing his eyes shut and shudderingly exhaling through his nose.

I kiss his hand nonetheless.

He raises the hand, our faces just inches apart, both our faces streaked in tears, his eyes dark and afraid.

"If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart," he murmurs, hiccuping from his tears, to which I can only reply with murmurings of "I did, i did, I promise you."

"If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart," he says, speaking louder and clearer, staring nowhere but my eyes, now moving his hand and holding my face, "absent the from felicity a while and in this harsh world, draw thy breath in pain to tell my story."

I shut my eyes and wail.

There is a muffled sound of shot outside, and my prince again clings to me, murmuring slightly, almost fearfully, "What warlike noise is this?"

It is uncertain if he means the shot-sounds, or my own cries.

A courtier enters and in a voice unfitted to the atmosphere, announces the arrival of Fortinbras.

Hamlet winces and holds me tighter, burying his face into my shoulder. The true pains are beginning now, evidenced by his spasming hands and wincing cheeks, and he chokes out in a cloud of exclamations, "I die, Horatio!"

I hold him tightly, the tears running into his black-clothed shoulder.

"The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit," he murmurs, curling into himself, wincing and gasping for comfort and for breath. To the courtier he looks and calls out, weakly, "I cannot live to hear the news from England. But I do prophesy the election lights on Fortinbras."

He turns into me again, the light slowly going from his eyes. I hold him and kiss him, despite the noise of protest that emanates.

"He has my dying voice," he says, small and weak,"So tell him, with the occurents, more and less, which I have solicited..."

He winces. He cries out softly, like a pitiful animal, his weeping not even mournful, but somehow noble in the emptiness of the hall. He takes my hand and does kiss me.

"The rest is silence."

He curls into my shoulder, convulsing painfully, violently, his hand which grasps mine cold and blue, the lips which had kissed mine the same. He calls out, just once, just a small cry of "Horatio," and then he is gone.

With his passing, I feel as though a part of me has left.

I cannot comprehend.

With tender care, I lift his body frommy lap, laying him regally upon the floor, crossing his arms and closing his clouded eyes.

"Now cracks a noble heart." My voice breaks upon the words, which threaten to destroy me. My pale prince is finally quiet, finally at peace. I did not know it would require of me to lose my peace, to gain his sorrow.

I do not bemoan him for it.

I kiss his forehead gently. "Good night, sweet prince."

When I look at him again, I am struck by how tired he finally looks. How wan and thin and exhausted.

"And flights of angels sing thee to they rest."


End file.
